The present invention relates to an arrangement for feeding bulk material tending to cake from a feeder via a chute into an inlet opening having a cross-section which is less than that of the discharge of the feeder.
In such arrangements the chute decreases the cross-section of the bulk material flow from the wide discharge end to the smaller inlet opening of the arrangement, to which the bulk material is supplied. The feeder is often provided as a conveyor belt, so that in the particular case of high throughput quantities a large rectangular cross-section is to be reduced to a small more quadratic or round cross-section. When working with bulk material tending to cake, the danger exists that the bulk material falling down close to the wall, collects against the wall of the chute and thereby progressively decreases the free cross-section. This danger is increased with an increase of the throughput quantities. Admittedly, caking can be avoided by vibrators which act on the wall of the chute. However, such vibrators lead in many cases to excessive oscillation loads of the chute walls in cases of tough caking.
Accordingly, the present invention has the object to change the aforementioned arrangement in such a manner, that blockages of the chute by caking of the bulk material is avoided.